No One Wants to Mind the Phones.

"Welcome to the new wave"

If you didn’t get it, that’s a Succession reference.

Anyway.

Let’s get into it.

Here’s the current thought that is keeping me up at night. Not literally, but it is causing me some concern as someone who studied the Financial Crisis for ages.

Corporate America is falling apart.

Let me explain.

As a Goldman Sachs analyst in Private Wealth, part of your job is to answer the phone.

A client calls, you say “Goldman Sachs, X’s desk.” or something like that. You say the name of the advisor the person called for… and “office”… or “desk?”

I forget.

Regardless—you answer the phone and help them get what they need. Be it to speak to their advisor, talk to a WMP, answer a question. Whatever.

Now.

Goldman offers to pay you $90,000 per year to do that job. You’ll work a lot—exact hours are team dependent—but you will work more than 40 hours a week. Obviously.

Then benefits. Taxes. etc.

So now it’s like we are scraping by to live, which makes you reliant on that job for financial reasons, healthcare, even your social life. All that jazz.

Step back.

Consider all the factors.

You sit all day.

It’s stressful.

The pay does not increase exponentially.

Step back further—

Enter the internet.

A family friend is starting a family office. They offer to pay you $150,000 to answer the phones.

4 people work in the office managing $50m.

No benefits, self-employment tax.

But your a core member of a boutique firm.

I don’t mean this is a romanticised sense, but from the bottom of my heart, take the second offer.

You’ll work more, most likely.

That is lost in today’s admiration of self-employment. But the goal is not to work less, it’s to build something for yourself.

What am I saying here?

People are disillusioned with Corporate America. And I’m concerned what that means for the future.

If people can make more money independently, they will do that.

Think of The Atlantic paying people $300k salaries. They are desperate to retain talent.

The attraction of legacy, a name brand company, shall we say, is losing its sparkle.

People want autonomy, to make their own legacy, to have flexibility.

I’m not sure if someone told it to me flat out, but once I stopped being an athlete it seemed like the path was go to college, get a degree, work at a firm for five years, then start your own thing. Maybe.

And that’s not a bad path.

But what if people don’t need to spend $70k to get a degree in English? What if you could just write and self-publish a novel?

Now I’m not saying certain degrees can be skipped. Lawyer. Doctor. etc.

But what happens when those fields aren’t interesting enough anymore? And I don’t mean no one wants to be a doctor. I mean you graduate and join a practice of two people vs Mount Sinai.

That means the system would have to be restructured.

Where do you do your residency? Can it be at a smaller office?

There are huge implications for this on the patient side.

A smaller team means higher cost, yes, but also more specialised care. More attention.

The trend moves from elite institutions to elite individuals.

All of this also connects to the concern about population growth, especially since Gen Z is seemingly the least interested generation in having children—again I think this is really because of disillusionment.

Children are a real responsibility. And people have shit to do.

Coming back to focus here—

What happens when people don’t want to work for Adobe? When they’d rather make their own art vs sell a product to help other people make art? Or edit a PDF, sure.

What happens to a bank when there’s no analyst to answer the phones? Or to edit a deck? Or adjust the model?

When large quantities of people find independent opportunities, Corporate America will suffer.

Not just in terms of growth.

If “excellence” is the trademark for Goldman Sachs, and now a robot is answering the phones, why would I remain a client there?

Why would I not go to my friends’ sisters family office in Tribeca that only manages 5 clients and has a La M machine in the office?

Prestige does not mean scale, it means intimacy.

The benchmark that makes people care shifts—from name brand to personalised. From the idea of excellence to actual performance.

Take a firm like D.E.—one of the few that actually pivots fast enough. They don’t just invest, they have an entrepreneur in residence program.

Because focusing on exceptional people with exceptional ideas is how they stay ahead.

Because we care about people, not brands. That is where trust lies now.

I don’t care if the lobby is pretty if you can’t execute.

That being said, a little aesthetic is also preferred.

But you don’t need to wear an androgynous YSL suit to edit a deck. You can do all of these jobs without the shiny loafers.

Focus less on the external image and focus more on results.

If we see another bank fall, which we might considering they never stopped investing in remarketed mortgage backed securities, and considering interest rates refuse to fall, the gov might sell off protected land, the housing market might falter… etc. We’re already seeing higher levels of consumer credit card and personal loan defaults. If that moves to mortgages, we know what happens. Maybe not on the same scale, but we’ll see.

The point is not that we’re preparing for another 2008.

The point is that trust in large institutions is on the downturn and there may be a catalytic event that pushes this forward, such as a bank issue, or it may be slower.

But if there is no one to answer the phones at Goldman Sachs, who wants to be a client of Goldman Sachs?*

If no one wants to be a client of Goldman Sachs, what happens to Goldman Sachs?

How will we see the shift?

Bluntly—it’s already happening. But let’s give concrete examples.

Lower enrollment rates at universities.

Higher numbers of automated calls.

Concentrations of capital flowing out of US institutions.

Continued growth of small businesses.

Growth in sole proprietors and LLCs.

Possibly—unclear—but possibly this will impact the markets. If people lose trust in corporations, we lose trust in equities… or if we have less corporations, slower growth… equities decline…

but that is a very under developed idea.

Something to consider.

Anyway.

That’s enough for now.

Food for thought.

Don’t let it stress you out too much.

Or maybe it’s just me who this stresses out.

I’m all for individualism, prestige, boutique. I want to be a part of the family office of 5.

That is where people can have real taste, that world.

But I do think about the economic impact.

C’est la vie.

It’s all a mess. Bisou, bisou!

xx

*This is not personal to GS. It is my fav bank.

I don’t by any means hope they have a fall.

They are only ones I’d trust my money with, in truth. Out of the banks I mean.

They are the best.

I simply use them as an example because they are the best.